Of Monsters and Men
by Dreams.Written.In.The.Stars
Summary: In a world where the dead walk amongst the living, Libby Tyler classifies herself as 'surviving'. But then she meets Carl. And somehow, they help each other make the shift into 'living'.
1. The Concrete Kingdom

**Disclaimer**: I do not own 'The Walking Dead', or any of it's characters (though I wouldn't mind owning Daryl Dixon)

**Summary**: In a world where the dead walk amongst the living, fifteen-year-old Libby survived four years of this living nightmare. But then she met Carl. And suddenly, Libby was living again.

**Rating: M** for death, blood, gore, zombies, and later on, sexual themes

**Timeline**: This will deviate from the show after 'The Suicide King', as that is the last episode that I have watched. It's probably also just worth mentioning that Carl is sixteen years old in this, because it's been three years since Judith's birth.

**AN**: So, I probably shouldn't have started this story. I'm in the middle of another one 'A Thousand Years' (and I'm about to shamelessly self-advertise) and if you've read or watched 'The Outsiders' you should totally go check that out, because who doesn't love Johnny Cade? Anyway, I'll alternate between the stories, so unless something comes up, this should be getting updated once every two weeks.

**~-{**_**Chapter I: The Concrete Kingdom**_**}-~**

_Survivors aren't always the strongest;_

_sometimes they're the smartest,_

_but more often simply the luckiest_

-Carrie Ryan: The Dark and Hollow Places

**Part I: Found**

The sobbing was really starting to get to her.

She wanted to tell him to shut up, because he was making her feel like she was about to cry, there was that lump forming in her throat and her eyes itched (_but it wasn__'__t tears, really it wasn__'__t, she just had something in her eye-_) and she just needed him to shut up.

She'd known it was over the second she saw the bite mark. And the blood. God, _the blood_-

He really needed to shut up.

"Dad," she finally said, only her voice cracked, _and of course she wasn__'__t about to cry_-

He didn't pay any attention to her. He just continued to hold his wife desperately. And really, wasn't that the way that it had been her whole life? Her parents were desperately, crazily in love with each other. They were attached at the hip, she didn't think she'd ever seen them apart unless absolutely necessary. They were each other's world, they depended on one another, they were _so caught up in each other_-

So why would they have time for their daughter?

They didn't.

She breathed in deeply, moved forward, saw her mom's face over her dad's shoulder. She was still ali-… _awake_. She was still awake. Her blue eyes matched her daughter's as they shared a brief look over her dad's shoulder.

Her mom looked at her dad. "Larry," she croaked. Some of the blood had smeared over her lips.

He looked up at the sound of his wife's voice. He didn't ignore his wife, the way he did his daughter. _Of course._

Her mom cleared her throat and tried again. "Larry." This time her voice was clearer, but it was lined with heavy exhaustion, and the fifteen-year-old girl hovering at her father's shoulder knew that soon she would di-… _fall asleep_. Soon she would fall asleep. And then what would her dad do? She was fairly certain that her parents couldn't live without each other.

"_Larry,_" her mom repeated, and this time there was desperation and pleading in her tone, and as her eyes connected with her daughter's again, the girl knew what her mom was asking for.

Gathering her courage, she reached for her dad's shoulder.

"Dad," he was still focused on her mom. She persevered. "Dad, she's been _bit_. You know… you know what happens when people get bit by them. We're going to have to… she's going to… we've got to-"

And _then_ he was paying attention to her. He stood from where he'd had her mom cradled against his chest, tall and terrifying in his fury, his brown eyes full of brimstone and fire.

"_We__'__re going to have to what_?" he hissed at her.

She took a startled step back. Her parentswould never win parent of the year awards, as they had spent the last fifteen years largely ignoring her in favor of each other, but never had they shown anything that could be interpreted as aggressive towards her.

Until now, at least.

She squared her shoulders. She'd put up with four years of this hell, the dead walking around her as they rotted and stank and scratched and clawed and bit and _tried to freaking eat her_, and he was not allowed to intimidate her, father or not.

"You _know_ what we're going to have to do."

He stared hard at her for several more seconds. She did not back down.

"Larry," her mother said again. "Larry, she's right. You _know_ what you have to do."

And then he was sobbing again, and _God_, could he not _shut up_, because she'd been holding it together pretty well up until this point, but she couldn't _focus_ when he _did that_-

He finally did stop a minute later when they heard a rustling in the greenery nearby. Father and daughter stood, on high alert. Her mom was still sprawled out on the grass, leaking red all over what was once such a _pretty _green from an arm that was just about half-gone.

"I know I heard cryin'," someone, a male, was saying in a thick Southern drawl that just about screamed 'redneck hick', and she relaxed a little, because the zombies did not speak, but not completely, because if the last four years had taught her anything it was that people could be monsters too.

"Would you quit making so much noise?" this voice, again male, sounded younger, the accent more Northern, something that she, being from Maine, was far more familiar with.

She considered it a miracle they'd _survived_ four years and all the way down to Georgia.

The hick snorted. She could see leaves trembling with their passage now. Any minute…

"What for?" he asked. "Ain't never heard no walker _cry_."

Walker. That must be what they called the zombies. She'd heard them called a few different things over the past few years: zombies, lurchers, monsters, geeks, _walkers_…

She used zombies. Plain and simple. But walkers made sense too. They were, after all, _the walking dead_.

And then they came through to their little clearing, and she could hear her mom beginning to gasp for breath behind her, and she longed to just put her out of her misery-

Maybe she was stereotyping, but somehow she got the feeling that the redneck was the muscular white guy with the crossbow, and that the Northerner was the skinny Asian guy.

Crossbow Guy lifted his weapon.

"And who are y'all?" he asked, proving her theory.

Her dad surged towards Crossbow Guy, which she didn't think was all that smart from the way both men jerked, ready to take her dad down at the first sign of hostility.

"Please," her dad pleaded, and she'd never heard such _fear_ in his voice. "Please, my wife," he gestured back towards her dying mother. "You have to help her."

The men looked around them, saw her mom. A spasm of emotion crossed Crossbow Guy's face. Empathy maybe? She wasn't sure. Northerner winced. "Oh man…" he breathed.

Crossbow Guy grabbed the gun off Northerner. Northerner protested with a weak "hey!" but mostly his attention was still on her mom. Crossbow Guy walked towards her mom, and she understood what was happening. She turned away, closing her eyes.

Two shots were fired. One for the human in her mom. One for the zombie.

She heard her dad's choked gasp. She opened her eyes again. And okay, those were tears this time.

"You-" her dad started, and he sounded so totally heartbroken, and the tears came faster now. "You… you _monsters_! What did you _do_ to her!?"

Crossbow Guy's face was hard, but she thought there might be some sadness behind his eyes.

"Ya asked me to help her. I did."

Her dad began wailing again, screaming about how they hadn't helped her, they'd _butchered_ her, but she kept staring at the man who had ended her mother's pain.

"Thank you," she blurted out.

Crossbow Guy looked at her in surprise, but then understanding seemed to flit across his face, and he nodded curtly at her. Her dad spun around in a fury, something in his dark eyes a little unstable, and in that moment, yelling at her as spittle flew from his mouth, she was just a little bit scared of him.

"_Thank you_? You're fucking _thanking _them for killing your _mother_!?"

But that wasn't how she saw it. Not at all.

"I'm _thanking_ them for putting an end to her suffering. I'm _thanking_ them for not letting her turn into a freaking _zombie_, because you and I _both_ know that we couldn't have done it. You _wouldn__'__t_ have done it, and I… I wouldn't be _strong_ enough to do it. And then she would have come back, and you know she would hate it. It's not what she wanted. _Nobody _wants that."

And it was true. Nobody did want that. Her speech didn't come from some intimate knowledge of her mother, because the truth was, she _had_ no such knowledge. But she knew that her mom hadn't wanted that, because _nobody wants that_.

Her dad broke down again, stooping to cradle his wife's corpse to his chest. She turned away, tears in her eyes. Northerner had come closer to Crossbow Guy now, and though they were clearly sympathetic to the broken family's plight, she could tell they were getting ready to go their own way.

That thought panicked her. These two men were the most decent people they'd come across in what must have been close to three years (_though if she__'__s being honest with herself, she__'__s lost track of time, she only knows she__'__s fifteen because it__'__s the fourth summer since the outbreak-_) so when they turned to leave the clearing, she found herself stepping forward, heard her voice escaping her.

"Wait! Are you guys with a group? Could you take us?" (_could you take _me?)

She remembers four years ago, when the dead first stopped staying dead, how she and her parents had been run out of their comfortable middle-class house, how they'd sat on the highway stuck in traffic for hours and hours during the evacuation, her dad assuring them that the government would sort things out soon (_and here they were, four years later_), wondering if the refugee camp would have space for the seventy-two inch flat screen TV they'd hauled along with them (_and how stupid they were, television was the least of their worries-_)

She remembers when they'd run out of gas, stuck on the interstate as they were in the middle of all that traffic, remembers her parents spending half an hour trying to figure out how to haul the TV along with them, before finally, _finally_ realizing that food should be the priority. She remembers them walking for miles down the interstate, and she remembers the way her dad had dragged her along when zombies started to flood the roads, running out to the woods.

But most of all she remembers spending the following six months with a group. And even though people often got picked off by the zombies, or separated from the rest of the group, it was the safest she'd felt since this whole thing started.

_Safety in numbers_.

She'd grown up comfortably middle-class. Her dad had a corporate job with some company, mom was a fifth grade school teacher. The majority of her life had been spent in school and the safe, fenced-in perimeter of her backyard. She'd known nothing of hunting, shooting, _surviving_. None of them had.

But the group taught them. If it hadn't been for the group, the Tyler family would have been long dead. Or worse- _one of them_.

Crossbow Guy and Northerner exchanged glances.

"…Yeah, we're part of a group…" Crossbow Guy finally said wearily. She noticed that no names were given, nor did they say, _yes, you can come back with us_.

She decided to try a different tactic.

"My name is Libby," she admitted, "please, you've got to let us come back with you. Me and my dad, we're… we're all that's left, I..." (_I don't know how much longer we can survive on our own_)

Another glance was exchanged. Her dad looked up from her mom's lifeless body.

"Daryl," Crossbow Guy finally spat roughly. He gestured to Northerner. "And that there's Glenn."

Daryl and Glenn. Not Crossbow Guy and Northerner. _Daryl and Glenn_.

Daryl took a step towards her. Seemed to think better of approaching her (_or anybody nowadays really_) unexpectedly, and stayed put. She held eye-contact, so he'd know she was listening anyway.

"Y'all wanna come back with us, ya gotta let us hold onto your weapons. Can't have ya stabbin' us in the back or nothin'. Y'all'll be locked up for a bit, we're holed up in a prison block ya see, until our leader can talk to ya, make sure you're not a threat, decide whether or not you're allowed to stay."

A prison block. That was a genius idea. All that fencing, once designed to keep the inmates _in_, would now serve the purpose of keeping the zombies _out_. She was surprised at how selective they seemed to be of their group members, but then she remembered what he said about them _stabbing him in the back_.

And she reminds herself- even people can be monsters.

It was easier than she thought it'd be, stripping herself of weapons, leaving herself defenseless to these men. She thought maybe it was intuition. They weren't going to hurt her, unless she hurt them first. She didn't know how she knew this. She just did.

Her dad still hadn't removed his weapons though. "Dad…" she didn't know what to say. She wished her mom was here. Her mom would've known what to say.

Glenn shuffled a little nervously. "Hey," he said to her dad, "you guys can come with us, we'll help you with-" he gestured awkwardly towards her mom. "We can have a funeral for her."

_Funeral_. That wasn't a word she'd heard in awhile. She appreciated the sentiment. As though her mom would be properly respected, and not just dumped into some hastily-dug hole in the ground.

And they did help. The next two hours were spent digging a six-foot grave in the sweltering Georgia heat, and when they were done, her dad spent another half-hour gently laying her mom to rest. He kept repositioning her until finally she was just so. And then he jumped out of the grave and stared at the body for a few more minutes, before finally giving the go ahead to pile the dirt back in.

Her dad finally gave up his weapons after that, though he did not speak.

**Part II: Ibuprofen **

Hours later, Libby's dad still had not spoken. She found she didn't mind. She was afraid she'd cry if he said something about her mom.

Turns out, Daryl and Glenn had been on a supply run looking for a pharmaceutical store. They had a three-year-old in their group. Her name was Judith. She was running a light fever, and their doctor (_had they said his name was Hershel?_) had sent them out for medicine. They were looking primarily for Ibuprofen, hoping to break the fever. Also Penicillin. In case it turned out to be something serious. Because they didn't have a diagnosis, but Penicillin cured a lot of things.

Somehow it had never crossed Libby's mind that people would still be having babies. They were damn lucky they weren't out on the road. A screaming toddler would bring a whole hoard of zombies down on them.

In any case, even though it had been three years, it was still fairly easy to acquire things (_and she never let herself think that it was an indicator of how few people there were in the world now, because those things were not people, not anymore-_) like canned foods, medicine and clothes. At least, it was if you could find a store. And sometimes, finding a store was hard.

And so that was why she was in a pharmacy on the day her mom had died, her knife given back to her temporarily, just in case they'd missed one in their cursory check over the place. Her dad stood beside her as she shoved through the products, she already had two Ibuprofen (_because you never know when you'll need it in this world_) but she couldn't find the Penicillin.

"Dad, could you help me find the Penicillin?"

He stared blankly back at her. The emptiness that had entered his eyes after they'd buried her mom disturbed her deeply. She knew he was listening to her, because he'd turned to look at her, but he did not move to help her.

Daryl came around the corner, Glenn hot on his heels. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that they had Penicillin.

"C'mon," he said roughly in that Southern drawl, "let's head back."

And he took her knife again.

**Part III: Salt**

It was imposing. Once a place for the convicted, it was now the kingdom of the living and the lost. Barbed wire surrounded the concrete majesty, and zombies stumbled around it, their animated corpses jerking unnaturally in their decomposition.

She was _so_ glad her mom would never become one of them.

They were ushered quickly through a set of gates by a rail-thin woman (_and weren't they all so, so skinny these days?_) with closely cropped salt and pepper hair, but she had that natural kind of beauty that Libby would kill for, and a pretty set of wide doe eyes. As soon as the gates were safely closed, she was being held close in Daryl's arms, and Libby knew immediately that they belonged to one another.

Glenn continued to lead her and her dad inside. As they passed beneath the long shadow of a watch tower, she saw a boy looking down at her. It was hard to tell from so far away, but she thought he was about her age. And wearing a cowboy hat. She wished she had a hat. It was too hot.

They did as Daryl had said, they locked her and her dad up (_and she never did think she'd end up in the slammer, much less willingly_) and she stared at the bars, the thin mattress uncomfortable beneath her as she tried in vain to not think about her poor mother. The zombie was only there for half a second before her dad had smashed it's head in, but when it fell away, it had taken a chunk of her mom's arm with it, and her stomach churned violently just thinking about it.

As she thought of the blood smear that had adorned her mom's pretty face, she felt her eyes fill with tears (_the eyes she had inherited from her mom_-) and this time she did not attempt to hold them back. This time she let herself cry.

And as the salty liquid made tracks of grief on her face, her dad continued to stare with that horrible, terrible blankness.


	2. Safe Haven

**Disclaimer**: I do not own 'The Walking Dead', or any of it's characters (though I wouldn't mind owning Daryl Dixon) Also, I don't own the band 'Of Monsters and Men'.

**Summary**: In a world where the dead walk amongst the living, Libby Tyler classifies herself as 'surviving'. But then she meets Carl. And somehow, they help each other make the shift into 'living'.

**Rating: M** for death, blood, gore, zombies, and later on, sexual themes

**Timeline**: This will deviate from the show after 'The Suicide King', as that is the last episode that I have watched. It's probably also just worth mentioning that Carl is sixteen years old in this, because it's been three years since Judith's birth.

**AN**: So, there are mentions of abortion in here, just in case you're sensitive to that kind of thing. There is no description, and it's not carried out, but you know, fair warning. There is also a part about God in here, where Libby expresses a lack of faith. This does not reflect my own personal religious views, I'm just trying to convey a personality who has almost completely lost hope.

Thank you to all of you who reviewed, and thank you for fav's and follows, it really means a lot, guys!

**~-{**_**Chapter II: Safe Haven**_**}-~**

_What I like most about change is that it's a synonym for "hope"._

_If you are taking a risk,_

_What you are really saying is,_

"_I believe in tomorrow and I will be part of it."_

-Linda Ellerbee

**Part I: A Life that Once Was**

If there was one thing that Libby could say for her parents, it was that they had _tried_.

They'd never ignored her on purpose. It just happened. Libby had been an accident, it was plain as day. In fact, when she was ten, she'd overheard her mom talking to her grandma about how her parents had seriously considered getting an abortion. A baby had never been in the Tyler family's plans.

Her parents were childhood sweethearts. Her mom had promised to marry her dad on the playground way back when they were in the third grade in exchange for a red jellybean, and that had been the end of that. From that day on, they ate lunch together and held hands, until the eighth grade, when they kissed on the swing set at the park.

They had gotten married straight out of high school. Everyone had thought her mom was pregnant, but she wasn't. They just really wanted to be married. They had started pooling their money together, saving. They had plans, big plans. Road trips across the USA, seeing Buckingham Palace, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, visiting Barcelona, buying a summer home in Rome. They wanted to see the _whole world_-

And then a little plastic stick with piss on it told her mother she was having a baby (_and what a disappointment Libby was, in comparison to the whole world_-), and they were stuck in Maine, and all that money was being spent on supplies for a kid they weren't even totally sure they wanted.

It had been her mom, as far as Libby understood, that had changed her mind. They'd been at the abortion clinic, about to sign the dotted line, and suddenly she'd walked out. Libby had never asked _why_ she'd walked out that day (_too afraid that her mom would look at her blankly, too afraid she'd say 'I don't know', or 'I regret it'_) but she'd heard her parents had had arguments about it. That her dad had tried to push for the abortion.

Libby was born though, and she barely even remembers her dad so much as _looking_ at her before her sixth birthday when she'd begun to show a particular amount of intelligence in the report cards she brought home. Her mom had tried to fill that void, but she wasn't particularly good at it, especially because if her dad was home, her mom barely gave Libby the time of day in favor of him.

But they had _tried_. They were there when it mattered. When she got hurt or sick at school, for birthdays and Christmases (_and she wondered if it was selfish that she wanted more, because so many don't even have that much_-) and somewhat sporadically when it _didn't_ matter. Sometimes her mom would brush her hair for her before bed, sometimes her dad would let her sit on top of his shoulders. But she knew it was _forced_, because then they'd get tired of catering to her whims (_and maybe it was really her fault, maybe there was something she could have done, something that would have made her parents love her just as much as they'd loved each other_-), and they'd lose themselves in each other, and Libby would be left (_thrown to the side like a forgotten doll_).

Things changed when the virus spread (_and God, didn't _everything_ change?_). She had been eleven. There had been news reports for awhile. It first started happening far, far away, where Libby still felt safe to play with her dolls. After all, what did she care if people were going crazy and biting each other in Japan. Her parents had waved it off, said they were probably methed out (_whatever _that_ means, her eleven-year-old self had thought_).

Within two weeks, thirty-five countries worldwide were begging for medical help from superpowers like America, though looking back on it, she wasn't sure why they'd thought that would help. Japan had been a superpower as well, and they'd been the very first to fall in the wake of this… this… (_and it wasn't even a disease, _plague_ was not a strong enough word, it was evil, pure evil sweeping it's way across the planet_) this _insidious thing_, and then it had hit Canada and started heading south, and Libby got scared because her mom and dad were scared.

The second reports started up in Maine, her dad had pulled her out of school, dumped her in the car where her mom was waiting, and tried to drive into New York City, where there were supposed to be refugee camps. And _thank God_ they'd hit that traffic snarl, _thank God_ they'd run out of gas (_though Libby's not even sure there _is_ a God anymore, only evil, and if He is up there, she wonders what they did to make Him hate them so much_), because those who reached the inner city were awaiting one of three fates: death by zombie, death by soldiers-turned-executioners, or death by the government dropping bombs on its contaminated citizens in a desperate bid to just _keep the disease contained_-

Libby would later learn, throughout the next four years, that the same thing had ended up happening to all the major cities across the country. Places like New York City, Hollywood, Beverley Hills, New Orleans, Miami, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Las Vegas, _Atlanta_-

_All of it was gone._

**Part II: Release**

They were sat in that dark cold cell all night. She hadn't managed to sleep a wink, her mother's too-still face imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. Finally, Libby heard the sound of keys jangling, the echo of footsteps through long, empty corridors, two male voices, their words incomprehensible because of the way they bounced off the walls.

When he stepped up on the other side of those bars, weak sunlight behind him, all she could really see was an outline, a silhouette. But it was enough. It was a tall, thin boy, the boy that she'd seen at the watchtower, the wide-brimmed hat he wore was proof enough of that. A man appeared beside the boy, much older than he was. They were almost the same height and were both lean, they had the same dark hair, the same intensity in their expressions.

She thought they might be father and son. She was almost sure of it.

The boy pulled a set of keys off his belt, before unlocking the cell door. She watched her dad closely, knowing it wouldn't help their case if he bolted for the door. But he was still in that listless state that scared her in ways she could not describe. The older man stepped inside while the boy stood guard at the door.

The man standing before her looked hard at her and her dad for a minute, before running a hand over his face and through his hair. He seemed… frustrated? No, that wasn't it. He seemed lost (_and Libby certainly knew what that felt like_) and tired (_she knew what that was like too_). They'd run into enough groups over the years (_and what awful run-ins _those_ had been_) for Libby to know the mark of leadership when she saw it. It always took a toll.

"Daryl says you just lost your wife," the man suddenly spoke. His voice echoed and in the silence it was startlingly loud. He had directed the statement towards her father, but after a few moments of non-response, Libby was certain he wasn't going to answer. In that moment, she hated her dad. She knew it had to hurt, to lose somebody that you loved as much as her parents had loved each other, but _God damn it_, didn't he know that she _needed_ him right now? She needed him to be the leader, she needed him to say something, _anything_, because she had gotten them here, in what she _hoped_ was the safety of a group, but she didn't know what to do from here. But he wasn't going to say anything. Nothing at all. He was just going to sit there and stare blankly at the wall, and Libby would have to do this on her own. Only she didn't know _how_.

Surviving the apocalypse had made her feel a whole lot older than she really was, but at that moment, she was suddenly just a scared fifteen-year-old.

The leader was still waiting for a response. Libby cleared her throat, stepping up, taking the lead, and he turned to look at her instead of her father, surprise clear on his face. She knew he hadn't expected to be having this… this… this _negotiation_ with a teenager. Hell, he probably didn't even see her as that. He probably saw her as a child.

"Yes, we lost my mom," she said, trying very hard not to seem even more immature by crying.

He looked her over slowly, critically, as though trying to assess whether this conversation was even worth having anymore, now that it was clear _she_ was the one in charge. With one final, intent glance at her dad, he focused his attention on her, and she straightened her back, chin up, trying to look older and tougher than she really was.

"Well, I'm awful sorry to hear that," he said finally. "I know what it's like to lose someone. My wife passed a few years ago."

She could believe that. At this point, everyone had lost someone.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said a bit stiffly, unsure how to respond and still holding back tears.

He was still looking at them like he was a bit lost, or unsure as to how to deal with their presence. She decided to help him out. The honest route had gotten Daryl and Glenn to bring them here in the first place, after all.

"Please let us stay," she found herself saying, "we won't cause you any trouble, I swear it! We'll help you guys out, whatever you need. We're not looking to freeload or anything, we'll help to work towards the good of the group." She wasn't _entirely_ certain that what she was saying was right, but '_for the good of the group_' was a phrase she'd heard a lot in their last group. They had to learn to hunt, _for the good of the group_. They had to steal, _for the good of the group_. They had to kill people that posed a threat, _for the good of the group_. It was a phrase that had stayed with her through the years, and now she was blindly repeating it, in a desperate attempt to make him let them stay. From the way his gaze instantly became sharper, more intense at her words, she thought maybe she was doing something right.

"You know that taking you in would just mean that we'd have two more mouths to feed?" he finally asked. She looked him in the eye steadily, determinedly, even though her stomach had dropped at his words and her heart was racing in fear. She'd let herself imagine all night, what it might be like to live in the relative safety of a group. She'd let herself become attached to the fantasy, and now she wasn't sure _what_ she'd do if she couldn't make it a reality.

"Like I said, we're not freeloaders. We'll do our fair share. We've been on our own for years, we know how to scavenge for supplies. We won't just sit around, being burdens. We can _help_ you, in return for helping us."

He continued to stare at her with an uncomfortable intensity for several moments afterwards. She did not dare break eye-contact though. Instinctively, she felt that that would be a mistake. It would get them thrown out of this safe haven faster than she could blink.

Finally, _finally_, he nodded slowly, still keeping his eyes on her for a moment, before he turned back to his son. "Alright, Carl, let them out."

As Libby heard the blessed sound of the key scraping into the lock, the leader turned back to her with a hard look. "I'm letting you stay for now, but you're on a trial run. If I think either one of you does anything to jeopardize the safety of this group, you're both out. _Do you understand_?"

Libby nodded frantically, eyes wide with gratefulness. "Yes, yes, we understand. Thank you so much, you won't regret this, I promise!"

"I better not," he said, turning away and walking out of the now opened cell door, past his son, Carl. "If you find Carol, she can give you your weapons back," she heard his voice from down the hall as he continued to walk away. Carl followed him, leaving the cell door open and Libby in a state of stunned thankfulness.

**Part III: Hope**

After getting their weapons back from Carol, who turned out to be the woman that Daryl had hugged at the gate, Libby had tucked her knife back into her boot and handed her dad his gun. He'd looked at her and mumbled a quiet, almost inaudible 'thank you', but it was the first time he'd responded to anything since they'd buried her mom the day before, and all Libby could feel was relief, _because maybe things were actually going to be okay_.

Libby had ended up talking to a blonde, fairy-like girl with big, big eyes who's name was Beth, because other than Carl, who Libby actually found somewhat intimidating, Beth seemed to be closest in age to her, despite the fact that she looked about twenty.

She'd learned a lot, talking to Beth, who was probably one of the sweetest people that Libby had met since the dead started getting back up (_and Libby sincerely wishes that _she_ had been able to hold onto some of _her_ sweetness, but all she had left was bitterness, and instinct_). The leader's name was Rick, and the wife he'd been talking about had died giving birth to the toddler with the fever, Judith. Hershel, the doctor, was Beth's father, and Beth's sister, Maggie, was with Glenn. And she'd already known that Daryl and Carol were a couple.

It intimidated Libby. They were all so inter-connected. She felt like the new kid at school, the girl that didn't belong. Where did she fit in? She felt awkward, like an intruder. Beth seemed to sense this insecurity though, and started chatting to her about random things, things that in the grand scheme of things were meaningless, but in the moment were distracting and relaxing. She could already tell that Beth was going out of her way to make Libby feel like part of the group, and she felt a sense of profound gratitude wash over her.

Despite the feeling of awkwardness though, being in the fortified walls of a prison and knowing she was in the company of a large group, Libby felt the most safe that she had since this whole thing had started. And looking at Beth trying so hard to make her feel welcomed, for the first time in a very long time, Libby thought that maybe, _just maybe_, there was some hope for the future.


End file.
